Scripture Thought (What I Learned):
Chapter 7: Haman is Hung
Haman and the king went to dine
with Queen Esther. And on the second day, at the banquet of wine, the king
again said to Esther, “What is your petition, Queen Esther? It shall
be granted you. And what is your request, up to half the kingdom? It
shall be done!” Then Queen Esther answered and said, “If I have found favor in
your sight, O king, and if it pleases the king, let my life be given me at my
petition, and my people at my request. For we have been sold, my people and I,
to be destroyed, to be killed, and to be annihilated. Had we been sold as male
and female slaves, I would have held my tongue, although the enemy could never
compensate for the king’s loss.”
King
Ahasuerus answered and said to Queen Esther, “Who is he, and where is he, who
would dare presume in his heart to do such a thing?”Esther replied, “The
adversary and enemy is this wicked Haman!” So Haman was terrified
before the king and queen.
Then the king arose in his wrath
from the banquet of wine and went into the palace garden; but Haman
stood before Queen Esther, pleading for his life, for he saw that evil was
determined against him by the king. When the king returned from the palace
garden to the place of the banquet of wine, Haman had fallen across the couch
where Esther was. Then the king said, “Will he also assault the queen
while I am in the house?” As the word left the king’s mouth, they
covered Haman’s face.
Harbonah,
one of the eunuchs, said to the king, “Look! The gallows, fifty cubits high,
which Haman made for Mordecai, who spoke good on the king’s behalf, is standing
at the house of Haman.” Then the king said, “Hang him on it!” So they hanged
Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then the king’s wrath
subsided.
Chapter 8: Mordecai Honored
On that day King Ahasuerus gave
Queen Esther the house of Haman, the enemy of the Jews. And Mordecai came
before the king, for Esther had told how he was relatedto her. So the king
took off his signet ring, which he had taken from Haman, and gave it to
Mordecai; and Esther appointed Mordecai over the house of Haman.
Esther
spoke again to the king, fell down at his feet, and implored him with tears to
counteract the evil of Haman the Agagite, and the scheme which he had devised against
the Jews. And the king held out the golden scepter toward Esther. So Esther
arose and stood before the king, and said, “If it pleases the king, and if I
have found favor in his sight and the thing seems right to the king
and I am pleasing in his eyes, let it be written to revoke the letters devised
by Haman, the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, which he wrote to annihilate the
Jews who are in all the king’s provinces. For how can I endure to see
the evil that will come to my people? Or how can I endure to see the
destruction of my countrymen?”
King Ahasuerus said to Queen Esther
and Mordecai the Jew, “Indeed, I have given Esther the house of Haman, and they
have hanged him on the gallows because hetried to lay his hand on the
Jews. You yourselves write a decree concerning the Jews, as you
please, in the king’s name, and seal it with the king’s signet ring;
for whatever is written in the king’s name and sealed with the king’s signet
ring no one can revoke.” So the king’s scribes were called at that time, in the
third month, which is the month of Sivan, on the twenty-third day; and
it was written, according to all that Mordecai commanded, to the Jews, the
satraps, the governors, and the princes of the provinces from India to
Ethiopia, one hundred and twenty-seven provinces in all, to every
province in its own script, to every people in their own language, and to the
Jews in their own script and language. And he wrote in the name of King
Ahasuerus, sealed it with the king’s signet ring, and sent letters by
couriers on horseback, riding on royal horses bred from swift steeds. By these
letters the king permitted the Jews who were in every city to gather
together and protect their lives; to destroy, kill, and annihilate all the
forces of any people or province that would assault them, both little
children and women, and to plunder their possessions, on one day in all the
provinces of King Ahasuerus, on the thirteenth day of the twelfth
month, which is the month of Adar. A copy of the document was to be
issued as a decree in every province and published for all people, so that the
Jews would be ready on that day to avenge themselves on their enemies. The
couriers who rode on royal horses went out, hastened and pressed on by the
king’s command. And the decree was issued in Shushan the citadel.
Mordecai
went out from the presence of the king in royal apparel of blue and white, with
a great crown of gold and a garment of fine linen and purple; and the city of
Shushan rejoiced and was glad.
In every province and city,
wherever the king’s command and decree came, the Jews had joy and gladness, a
feast and a holiday. Then many of the people of the land became Jews, because
fear of the Jews fell upon them.
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